The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Four In One Fashion or Another

The door was swept unceremoniously open, and Grayson visibly flinched. Clare was gratified to find his nerves were still steady. Besides, he had heard the determined tap of female footsteps, dainty little bootheels crackling with authority, and deduced Miss Bannon was in a fine mood.

Her sandalwood curls were caught up and repinned, but she was hatless and her dress was sadly the worse for wear. Smoke and fury hung on her in almost visible veils, and she was dead pale. Her dark eyes burned rather like coals, and Clare had no doubt that any obstacle in her way had been toppled, uprooted or simply crushed.

Green silk flopped uneasily at the shoulder, a scrap of underclothing tantalisingly visible, but there was no sign of a wound. Just pale, unmarked skin, and the amber cabochon glowing in a most peculiar manner.

Grayson gained his feet in a walrus lunge. He had turned an alarming shade of floury yeastiness, but most people did when confronted with an angry sorcerer. “Miss Bannon. Very glad to see you on your feet, indeed! I was just bringing Clare here—”

She gave him a single cutting glance, and short shrift. “Filling his head with nonsense, no doubt. We are dealing with conspiracy of the blackest hue, Lord Grayson, and I am afraid I may tarry no longer. Mr Clare, are you disposed to linger, or would you accompany me? Whitehall should be relatively safe, but I confess your talents may be of some use in the hunt before me.”

Clare was only too glad to leave the mediocre sherry. He set it down, untasted. “I would be most honoured to accompany you, Miss Bannon. Lord Grayson has informed me of the deaths of several mentaths and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Mr Throckmorton’s erstwhile guard. I gather we are bound for Bedlam?”

“In one fashion or another.” But a corner of her lips twitched. “You do your profession justice, Mr Clare. I trust you were not injured?”

“Not at all, thanks to your efforts.” Clare recovered his hat, glanced at his bags. “Will I be needing linens, Miss Bannon, or may I leave them as superfluous weight?”

Now she was certainly amused, a steely smile instead of a single lip-twitch, at odds with her childlike face. With that spark in her dark eyes, Miss Bannon would be counted attractive, if not downright striking. “I believe linens may be procured with little difficulty anywhere in the Empire we are likely to arrive, Mr Clare. You may have those sent to my house in Mayefair; I believe they shall arrive promptly.”

“Very well. Cedric, I do trust you’ll send these along for me? My very favourite waistcoat is in that bag. We shall return when we’ve sorted out this mess, or when we require some aid. Good to see you, old boy.” Clare offered his hand, and noted with some mild amusement that Cedric’s palm was sweating.

He didn’t blame the man.

Mentaths were not overtly feared the way sorcerers were. Dispassionate logic was easier to swallow than sorcery’s flagrant violations of what the general populace took to be normal. Logic was easily hidden, and most mentaths were discreet by nature. There were exceptions, of course, but none of them as notable as the least of sorcery’s odd children.

“God and Her Majesty be with you,” Cedric managed. “Miss Bannon, are you quite certain you do not—”

“I require nothing else at the moment, sir. Thank you, God and Her Majesty.” She turned on one dainty heel and strode away, ragged skirts flapping. Clare arranged his features in something resembling composure, fetched the small black bag containing his working notables, and hurried out of the door.

His legs were much longer, but Miss Bannon had a surprisingly energetic stride. He arrived at her side halfway down the corridor. “I know better than to take Lord Grayson’s suppositions as anything but, Miss Bannon.”

Miss Bannon’s chin was set. She seemed none the worse for wear, despite her ruined clothing. “You were at school with him, were you not?”

Was that a deduction? He decided not to ask. “At Yton.”

“Was he an insufferable, blind-headed prig then, too?”

Clare strangled a laugh by sheer force of will. Quite diverting. He made a tsk-tsk sound, settling into her speed. The dusky hall would take them to the Gallery; she perhaps meant them to come out through the Bell Gate and from there to find another hansom. “Impolitic, Miss Bannon.”

“I do not play politics, Mr Clare.”

I think you are a deadly player when you lower yourself to do so, miss. “Politics play, even if you do not. If you have no care for your own career, think of mine. Grayson dangled the renewal of my registration before me. Why, do you suppose, did he do so?”

“He does not expect you to live long enough to claim such a prize.” Her tone suggested she found the idea insulting and likely all at once. “How did you lose your registration, if I may ask?”

For a moment, irrationality threatened to blind him. “I killed a man,” he said, evenly enough. “Unfortunately, it was the wrong man. A mentath cannot afford to do such a thing.” Even if the beast needed killing.

Even if I do not regret it.

“Hm.” Her pace did not slacken, but her heels did not jab the wooden floor with such hurtful little crackles. “In that, Mr Clare, mentaths and sorcerers are akin. You kill one tiny little Peer of the Realm, and suddenly your career is gone. It is a great relief to me that I have no career to lose.”

“Indeed? Then why are you—” The question was ridiculous, but he wished to gauge her response. When she slanted him a very amused, dark-eyed glance, he nodded internally. “Ah. I see. You are as expendable as I have become.”

Her reply gave him much to think on. “In the service of Britannia, Mr Clare, all are expendable. Come.”